Today's Creation Moment

Mar

03

Are We as Good as It Gets?

Proverbs 16:18

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

Are we, as human beings, as good as it gets? According to several influential evolutionary scientists, human beings are as good as it gets, and evolution has stopped for us. Some dispute this, saying...

What Evolutionism has in common with Buddhism

A young woman named Kisagotami, the wife of a wealthy man, lost her mind when her child died. She took the dead child in her arms and went from house to house, begging people to heal the child.

Of course, they could do nothing for her. Finally, a follower of Buddha advised her to see the “Blessed One” who was staying in a neighboring town, and so she carried the child to Buddha. He looked upon her with sympathy and said: “To heal the child I need some poppy seeds. Go and beg four or five poppy seeds from some home where death has never entered.”

So the demented woman went out and sought a house where death had never entered … but her search was in vain. At last, she was obliged to return to Buddha. In his quiet presence, her mind cleared, and she understood why he had sent her searching for poppy seeds. She took the body away and buried it, and then she returned to Buddha and became one of his disciples.

The teaching of this story for Buddhists is that sickness and death are parts of nature and are all that there is. There is no hope beyond the grave. We just have to become perfectly dispassionate in our attitude toward death. As with evolutionism, “nature” is the “bottom line” – and naturalism is the philosophy.

Indeed, Buddhism explicitly teaches that nothing outside of nature created it. Nothing transcends the world. The supernatural is within the natural. Buddhism borrows heavily from Hinduism. If you can just reach “nirvana”, you can see that “the depth of your soul is the total reality.” This is a pantheistic worldview, saying, in effect, that God is a part of nature and we are a part of God.

Yet, the truth is, as the Bible says, that human beings have been made aware of a great Creator, separate from the universe. It says we have been shown this clearly – through the clear revelation of design in nature: “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made … so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). The biblical truth is that mankind has become a rebel, estranged from his Creator and bent on inventing all kinds of philosophies which deny the truth of a Creator.

What the eastern mystics say and what pantheism says is that we are all the victims of a grand illusion. The Hindu term for this illusion is “maya”. There is really no distinction between creation and Creator … and no separation. We are all part of a “cosmic whole”, which includes all the evil as well as the good. We are all God … and God is all. Even though we feel separate, this is merely an illusion. We are really all connected in “Brahman” – the “Universal Spirit.” We just need to “realize” it and become “enlightened”.

I find it interesting that evolutionists make essentially the same argument. Richard Dawkins, a popular spokesman for evolutionism and author of the bestselling The God Delusion, says: “Biology is the study of complicated things which give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”. We are simply under a “delusion”, explained away by natural selection and mutation within “nature”.

The aim of eastern meditation is to “realize” one’s essential union with the universe, to get beyond the illusion of separation from our Creator and “realize” that we are part of “the cosmic god”. With this kind of philosophy, I’m not surprised that eastern cultures did not come up with the Scientific Method and the scientific revolution! With nature as the ultimate reality, people are led to the final conclusion that no idea of right or wrong is possible. Disorder coexists with order, and this situation is the ultimate standard.

Christianity, on the other hand, teaches that nature and the universe are not eternal. They are not God. Christianity affirms that God created nature and the universe, and He is the ultimate standard. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The reason why the Scientific Method and scientific accomplishment grew out of Western Culture was due to the belief (worldview) that a Creator who gave us right principles for living also gave us firm principles governing His creation – principles which we could discover through scientific testing.

Under evolution, the worldview of much of elite Western Culture is now the chaotic, contradictory lens of a nature-based philosophy/religion, with its relativism and political correctness. We are all part of the cosmic whole, the great diversity of the natural environment. The West no longer dares to lift biblical values above others because evolutionism is accepted, nature is the standard, and nature is a contradictory mess. Biblical values bring conviction to the sinful heart of man … and evolutionists will have none of it!

Evolutionists regard the progress of creationists as threatening to their existence, and they work hard to silence us. This is a credit to the modern creationist movement, of which Creation Moments is an active part. For nearly 50 years, Creation Moments has been giving Christians good, solid reasons why the Bible can be trusted … from Genesis to Revelation!

We are continuing to develop free resources to help parents and churches stand strong against evolutionism and teach creation truth to young people. Last month, for instance, we started sending out Scrambled Scriptures – a Bible-teaching puzzle that families can enjoy together. Within hours of sending out the first puzzle, we started receiving comments like these:

"Thanks so much for the ‘Scrambled Scriptures’ you will be sending every Saturday! I can really use them with my Bible classes here in Korea. I know I can trust Creation Moments to have some good puzzles with godly content!" - B.B.

“I love the ‘Scrambled Scriptures’ idea! Thank you for emailing them to me. My parents would like them emailed to them, too.” – K.L.

There’s so much more we’d like to do to help churches and parents. If God puts it on your heart to support our work, won’t you help us by making a donation this month? Thank you and God bless you!

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